And they´re off! Without us!

Greetings all, it´s sunday evening and the race is now just over 7 hours
old; Pendovy Swift is up front with the much vaunted South Africans in
3rd. In second place at the moment are the two drunk Cornish Gig rowers,
Paul and Steve, but they´ll sober up in a few hours and drop down the
field again without much doubt!

The last few days have been a little strange for James and me. As the
excitement about race day built up, we couldn´t help but feel a little
removed from it as we knew that my elbow was going to prevent us leaving
with the rest of the field. I have now been signed off to leave by the
hospital and although the surgeon has suggested we wait until friday
before heading off we are looking to start on tuesday morning, provided
the race organisers feel that my 3 open wounds have healed up enough.

The race party on friday night was another classy affair, with one of the
Atlantic ´Angels´ getting laid for a second time; the Met Police crew
storming the bar to ´help´ the barman out; people singing various national
anthems on the bar stools and all manner of shenanigans.

This morning saw all the crews take to their boats and head out to the
start line. I was chomping at the bit knowing what everyone else was about
to head off and do, and knowing that we still had 48 hours to wait. James
and i took Jess and Rachel out to the start line in Komale to watch the
start of the race. The atmosphere was incredible, tears did abound, each
crew got a huge cheer from the crowd that had amassed on the harbour wall
as they rowed out of the Marina. There are some remarkable personal
stories in there, please take a moment to read about the boats Row of Life
and Unfinished Business on the race website
(www.atlanticrowingrace2007.co.uk), their stories are particularly
excepional.

At 12pm precisely, Support Vessel Sara sounded the horn and dropped the
flag to start the race. 20 boats powered out into the Atlantic with 3000
miles of ocean between them and their dreams.

We rowed out for a bit before heading back to the Marina, where we passed
the one late-starting boat Charmed Life, rowed by Pete Collett from
Australia. Pete had just returned from hospital having dropped his
leatherman on his cheek at 10:30 cutting quite a hole in his face that
required immediate medical assistance! He casually headed out of the
Marina at 12:30 complete with stitches and had soon caught the Atlantic
Angels and the Nautical Nurses! Another one of those amazing people
setting out on this wonderful race.

We now have tomorrow to fine-tune everything, rest up and prepare
ourselves for the chase, and boy will we chase hard.

James will update next time, and i´d imagine that next time will be
tuesday evening, by which time we will be on our way, the wind in our
faces as we hunt down the field one by one.

I hope everyone is well back at home, speak to you all soon!

Niall